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Against the Donatists

St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917

Book 5, That It is God, Not the Minister, Who Cleanses in the Sacrament of Baptism

It is clear that in the celebration of this Sacrament of Baptism there are three elements,¹ which you will not be able either to decrease or diminish, or put on one side. The first is in the Trinity, the second in the believer,² the third in him who operates.³ But they must not all be weighed by the same measure.⁴ For I perceive that two are necessary, and that one is quasi-necessary.⁵ The Trinity holds the chief place, without whom the work itself cannot be done. The faith of the believer follows next. Then comes the office of the ‘Minister,’⁶ which cannot be of equal authority. The first two remain always unchangeable and unmoved. For the Trinity is always Itself; and the Faith is the same in everyone.⁷ Both [the Trinity and Faith] always preserve their own efficacy. It will be seen, therefore, that the office of the minister⁸ cannot be equal to the other two elements⁹ [in the Sacrament of Baptism], because it alone is liable to change.

You will have it that between you and us there is a distinction, though the office is the same,¹⁰ and, judging yourselves to be more holy than we, you do not hesitate to place your pride higher than the Trinity,¹¹ although the person of the ‘Minister’ can be changed, but the Trinity cannot be changed. And, whereas it is Baptism which should be longed for by those who receive it, you put yourselves forward as the persons to be eagerly sought after.

Since you are----amongst others----‘ Ministers’ of the Sacrament, show what is the nature of the place that you occupy in this Mystery, and whether you can belong to its ‘body’!

The Name of Baptism is but one.¹² It possesses its own body¹³----a body which has its own well-defined members,¹⁴ to which nothing can be added, in which nothing can be taken away. If the ‘Minister’ who has to be chosen is counted as one of these members,¹⁵ then the whole body belongs to the ‘Minister.’ All these members are both at all times and once for all with this ‘body,’ and cannot be changed, whereas the ‘Ministers’ are changed every day, both as to place and time, and in their own persons.¹⁶ For it is not one man only, who baptises always or everywhere. This work is now done by different men from those who did it of old. In the time to come it will be done by yet others. The ‘Ministers’ can be changed; the Sacraments cannot be changed. Since therefore you see that all who baptise are labourers, not lords,¹⁷ and that the Sacraments are holy through themselves, not through men,¹⁸ why do you claim so much for yourselves? Why is it that you try to shut God out from His own gifts? Allow Him to bestow those things, which are His own. For that gift, which belongs to God, cannot be given by man. If you think otherwise, you are endeavouring to make of no effect the words of the Prophets and the promises of God, by which it is proved that it is God, not man, who cleanses. Here David the Prophet is against you, for he says in the fiftieth Psalm:
‘Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be cleansed beyond the snow’¹⁹;
and again in the same Psalm:
‘O God, wash me from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin.’²⁰

He said: ‘Wash me.’ He did not say:
‘Choose for me one by whom I may be washed.’

And the Prophet Isaiah also has written that
‘the Lord shall wash away the defilement of the sons and daughters of Sion.’²¹

We have proved in our Third Book that Sion is the Church²²; it follows that God washes the sons and daughters of the Church. He did not say:
‘They shall wash who judge themselves to be holy.’

Admit then that the Prophets overcome you, or, with them, recognise that it is not man who washes, but God.

As long as you ask:
‘How can he give, who has not anything to give?’²³
understand that it is the Lord who is the giver,²⁴ understand that it is God who cleanses each man, whoever he may be; for no one can wash away the defilement and stains of the mind, but God alone, who is also the Maker of the mind.²⁵ Or, if you think that it is your washing²⁶ [that cleanses], tell us what is the nature of this mind,²⁷ which is washed through the body, or what ‘form’²⁸ it has, or in what part of a man it dwells. To know this has not been granted to any. How, then, do you think that it is you who cleanse, when you do not know the nature of that which you cleanse? It belongs not to man, but to God to cleanse, for He has Himself promised that He will cleanse, through the Prophet Isaiah, when He said:
‘Even though your sins are like scarlet, I will make you white as snow.’²⁹

He said:
‘I will make you white,’
and not:
‘I will cause you to be made white.’

If this has been promised by God, why do you wish to give that which it is not permitted to you either to promise, or to give, or to have? Behold by Isaiah God has promised Himself to wash those stained by sin, not through a man.³⁰

Go back to the Gospel, and see what Christ has promised for the salvation of the human race. When the Samaritan woman refused water to the Son of God, then He said that which gives His answer to your contentions³¹:
‘He who shall drink the water which I give shall not thirst for ever.’³²

He said:
‘the water which I give.’

He did not say:
‘which they shall give, who deem themselves holy,’
as you think yourselves to be; but He did say that He would give. He Himself, therefore, it is who gives, and that which is given is His own. What, therefore, is it which you strive, with absolute unreasonableness,³³ to vindicate for yourselves?

Notes

species. Literally aspects, points of view.
in credente (the subject of the Sacrament).
in operante (the minister of the Sacrament).
non pari libramine ponderandae sunt singulae.
quasi necessaria. Cf. ‘quasi ecclesia ‘(iii, 10). ‘Contingently necessary’ is Mr. Sparrow Simpson’s translation (op. cit. p. 47). It conveys the idea that the appointment of a Minister in Baptism is not absolutely necessary in itself, but contingent on the Will of God. I doubt, however, whether this thought was before the mind of Optatus. His argument proceeds, as we shall see immediately, on somewhat different lines.
persona operantis. Persona from the part played by an actor = here the duty which the ‘minister’ has to perform----the official work assigned to him.
fides in singulis una est.
persona operantis.
duabus prioribus speciebus par esse non posse.
eiusdem personae esse distantiam. Persona, sc. operantis (v. supra). In the administration of Baptism, whether Peter baptises or Judas, there can be no real distantia. For distantia, as used by Optatus, cf. v, 3: Nam si esset distantia (i.e. personae, as here); i, 10 (inter schismaticos et haereticos); i, 21 (delictorum, i.e. inter delicta).
For they attributed the efficacy of Baptism, not to the work of the Trinity, but to their own sanctity.
Baptismatis unicum nomen est. There is only one Baptism. (Cf. Singulare Baptisma, passim.)
cui subest proprium corpus.
cui corpori certa sunt membra. That which we now call the Matter and Form of the Sacrament.
i.e. of the ‘body’ of Baptism. The ‘Minister’ has to be chosen, and consequently is external to the ‘body’ of Baptism. This reminds us of the converse argument that Umbilicus cannot be reckoned as one of the Endowments, because it is not external to the Body of the Church, but is a member (membrum) of that Body (ii, 8). Evidently St. Optatus looked on the Minister in Baptism as a sort of ‘Dos Baptismatis.’
The water, the invocation of the Trinity, the Trinity Itself, the Faith never change. They are always one everywhere and are always necessary---- from the first Christian Baptism to the last that shall be administered before the coming of our Lord. Everything else admits of change----the place, the time, the person of the ‘Minister.’
operarios esse non dominos. The reference clearly is to Luke x, 2: ‘Rogate Dominum messis ut mittat operarios in messem suam,’ where Challoner’s N.T. and both the A.V. and R.V. translate operarios ‘labourers’ (the old Rheims has workmen). Consequently I think it better to employ the word labourers here in order to recall the gospel text, though elsewhere, for the sake of lucidity, I translate operarius with reference to Baptism by the theological word Minister.
Sacramenta per se esse sancta, non per homines. Harnack writes of these words (History of Dogma, v, p. 42): ‘This is the famous principle of the objectivity of the Sacraments, which became so fundamental for the development of the dogmatics of the Western Church, although it could not be carried out in all its purity in the Roman Church, because in that case it would have destroyed the prerogatives of the clergy.’ It is difficult to see what Harnack had in his mind when he wrote this last qualifying sentence. Nothing can be more certain than that the Roman Church has always taught, without any limitation or qualification whatsoever, that the efficacy of the Sacraments is always and everywhere independent of the virtues or vices of those who administer them. Harnack in this passage probably used the words Roman Church as synonymous with Western Church (although this would not appear to be the case at first reading), since he would not wish to suggest that there is any difference in doctrine or practice between any Catholic Church in the West and the Church in Rome. But whilst recognising this, we are none the nearer to a comprehension of his real meaning.
Ps. 1, 9.
Ps. 1, 4.
Is. iv, 4.
iii, 2.
‘qui non habet quod det, quomodo dat?’ This was the great argument of St. Cyprian and his school against the validity of Baptism outside the Church. ‘How,’ they asked, ‘can a man give the Faith which he has not got? No one can give what he has not.’ In like manner the Donatists went on to argue that Baptism by a sinner was invalid, for----so they urged----by true Baptism grace is given; but the sinner without grace, cannot give what he has not. To this St. Optatus answers that it is God, not man, who bestows gifts in Baptism.
videte Dominum esse datorem. These words are omitted by RBv.
qui eiusdem fabricator est mentis.
lavacrum vestrum.
qualis est ipsa mens.
quam habet formam.
Is. i, 18.
As St. Optatus has said already, man is by God’s appointment the necessary (or rather the quasi-necessary) minister of the Sacrament. But God gives His Grace in Baptism directly to the baptised. He does not give it through a man----that is to say, He does not give it first to the ‘Minister,’ making him holy, so that this ‘Minister,’ by his own holiness, gives grace----though this would follow logically from Donatist principles.
quod praescribat praesumptionibus vestris.
John iv, 13.
tota inportunitate. For inportunitas see ii, 18.